Phalenas (Moths, 1870) is more varied; the collection shows a sense of humour, a feeling for the exotic, as in the quasi-Chinese poems, which are of a delicate pallor. But there is little new in his admonitions to cull the flower ere it fade, and his love poetry would insult a sensitive maiden with its self-understanding substratum of commentary. His reserve is simply too great to permit outbursts and like the worshipper of whom he speaks in his Lagrimas de Cera, he “did not shed a single tear. She had faith, the flame to burn—but what she could not do was weep.”[2] He is altogether too frequently the self-observer rather than the self-giver; nor would this be objectionable, if out of that autoscopy emerged something vital and communicable to the introspective spirit in us all. He can sing of seizing the flower ere it fades away, yet how frequently does he himself seize it? There is humour in the ninety-seven octaves of Pallida Elvira,—a queer performance, indeed, in which a thin comic vein blends imperfectly with a trite philosophic plot. Romantic love, the satiety of Hector, the abandonment of Elvira, the world-wanderings of the runaway, his vain pursuit of glory and his return too late, to find a child left by the dead Elvira, the obduracy of grandfather Antero; such is the scheme. Hector, thus cheated, jumps into the sea, which he might well have done before the poem began.
More successful is Uma Oda de Anacreonte, a one-act play in verse, in which is portrayed the power of money over the sway of love. Cleon, confiding, amorous youth that he is, is disillusioned by both love (Myrto) and friendship (Lysias). There is a didactic tint to the piece, which is informed with the author’s characteristic irony, cynicism, brooding reflection and resigned acceptation. Of truly dramatic value—and by that phrase I mean not so much the conventional stageworthiness of the drama’s technicians as a captivating reality born of the people themselves—there is very little.
In Americanas (1875) the poet goes to the native scenes and legends for inspiration; Potyra—recounting the plight of a Christian captive who, rather than betray her husband by wedding a Tamoyo chief, accepts death at the heathen’s hands—is a cold, objective presentation, unwarmed by figures of speech, not illuminated by any inner light; Niani, a Guaycuru legend, is far better stuff, more human, more vivid, in ballad style as opposed to the halting blank verse of the former; for the most part, the collection consists of external narrative—feeling, insight, passion are sacrificed to arid reticence.
Thus A Christã Nova (The Converted Jewess) contains few ideas; neither colour nor passion, vision nor fire, inhere in it. There is a sentimental fondness for the vanquished races—a note so common in the “Indian” age of Brazilian letters, and in analogous writings of the Spanish-Americans, as to have become a convention. The poem tells the story of a converted Jewess who is betrothed to a soldier. She is met by her betrothed after the war, with her father in the toils of the Inquisition. Rather than remain with her lover, she chooses to die with her parent; father and daughter go to their end together. Chiefly dry narrative, and perhaps better than Potyra, though that is negative praise. The poem is commendable for but two poetic cases: one, a very successful terza rima version of the song of exile in the Bible, “By the waters of Babylon sat we down and wept …” and the other, a simple simile:
… o pensamento
E como as aves passageiras: voa
A buscar melhor clima.…
… Thought
Is like a bird of passage, ever winging
In quest of fairer climes.…